The Anatomy of Wings (25 page)

Some days Sandy asked Beth to tidy up down the back. Especially the bottom shelves he said. He came and stood beside her while she was kneeling on the ground. She removed tennis rackets from their dusty jackets. While she unzipped them he watched. He stood with his arm resting on a shelf and his body facing her.

“If you can get on top of it,” he said, and smiled, “I'll let you go on the registers in a month or two.”

Beth worked at Sandy's Sports Store for nearly the whole of October. Mum said she was pleased with her. Beth had beaten her previous milestone without causing any incidents. Dad said she must be doing a good job. They wanted to know what Mr. Vale was like. Was he a good boss? Had she made friends with the other girls?

“Why don't you wear a nice skirt one day,” said Mum. “That embroidered one, the one Nanna made.”

“I'm not wearing a skirt,” said Beth. “Believe me. I'm not wearing a skirt.”

Nanna said it was all her praying to Saint Monica that had given Beth her second chance. In a matter of weeks she would be gone.

A hot dusty wind arrived and bothered the town for days. It banged at windows and rolled over bins; it blew up in restless gusts. It hurt our eyes and it made us cough on our words. Mrs. Bridges-Lamb closed all the louvers and put up hessian and it felt like we were in a cave. I couldn't see any sky or birds. She said it was time to get serious. She said we were about to learn some of the most important things in our education.

While the wind banged against the louvers she told us we were going to learn about the most important civilization in history, which was the ancient Romans. They were important because of their great ideas and contributions across many fields including sanitation, building, politics, and the military. She said we would also learn how to count using roman numerals, which was very important. Mrs. Bridges-Lamb loved the ancient Romans. The other class was doing projects on the space shuttle
Columbia
but Mrs. Bridges-Lamb said that was nothing compared to what the ancient Romans had given society.

Before we got to the Romans, however, we had to learn about the ancient Greeks. Mrs. Bridges-Lamb wasn't as excited about them. She rushed us through
the Acropolis. We raced past the Minotaur in his damp smelly labyrinth, barely looking back at the young maidens being slaughtered there. We flew past Zeus, the first Olympians, Marathon. We spent an afternoon with the Spartans, who seemed to stir something in her because she had to remove her glasses twice and clean the fog off them with her handkerchief. We stopped at the myth of Icarus.

The myth bothered me. For instance, Icarus's father didn't seem to care when his own son, all melting wax and feathers, fell from the sky and into the sea. Instead of stopping he just kept flying on to freedom. He did not look back once. And it was he who had thought up the stupid and impractical idea in the first place. And also, everyone in the class knew, but no one said a thing, that the sun is a lot farther away than you might expect.

After she had told us the myth Mrs. Bridges-Lamb took out a pile of butcher paper from the cupboards beneath the blackboard. She told us we were going to make our own Icarus wings. She said, in this instance, there were no rules. We had to make our wings exactly the way we imagined them.

Everyone was excited. It was the first time all year we had been without rules.

My wings were yellow. They didn't turn out the way I wanted. First I had drawn the anatomy in pencil. It had been difficult. It was hard to make both
sides look the same. It was very technical and one humerus turned out longer than the other. I was only doing it from memory and I fell behind the rest of the class.

When Mrs. Bridges-Lamb said we only had five minutes left all I could do was grab a yellow felt pen and cover over the bones as best I could but the yellow felt pen started running out halfway through and everything ended up wrong. Everyone had to form a line to tack their wings to the back wall. Massimo asked if mine was an X-ray of Big Bird and that made everyone laugh. Anthea smiled at me without showing her teeth and made sure I saw her wings had individually shaded feathers.

“Shame job,” she said when we went outside. “Your wings were very stupid.”

“Not as stupid as you are,” I said.

“Well your sister is a dirty slut,” said Anthea.

“She is not,” I shouted.

My cheeks were burning.

“She is,” said Anthea. “My big sister said it. Everyone says it.”

I pushed her. I rammed my two hands against her shoulders and she fell to the ground.

“Ouch,” she said, and started to cry.

A group of girls helped her up and escorted her to the principal's office to tell on me. Angela stayed beside me.

“What's a slut?” she asked.

“Something very bad,” I replied.

The day we made our Icarus wings I saw Beth on her bike and she was doubling Miranda Bell. I saw it out of the back window of the redback panel van just as we passed the football club. They were looking back at a group of boys sitting along the gutter and they were laughing. At first she didn't see me, face pressed to the rear window of the panel van, but then some of the boys raised their hands and called out because the van caused a commotion wherever it went. By the time she turned to look she was already disappearing into the distance. She waved but I couldn't tell if she was smiling. The sinking feeling was very strong.

T
HERE WAS ONLY ONE WEEK UNTIL THE TALENT QUEST AND ANGELA WAS FULL OF HOPE.
After I told her about my nanna's stroke she said it was more important than ever. Nanna could only get better if I could sing to her. She made everything sound like it was written in a fairy tale.

We walked the long way by the riverbed to Campbell Road and the caravan park. I kept thinking up excuses. For instance, what if Miranda had left town? She was always moving. She never stayed anywhere that long. She said so herself. Or what if, instead, we just went to the top of the hill and I tried yelling or screaming and Angela could hit my back until my voice dislodged?

“Don't be silly,” said Angela.

We walked to Miranda's caravan against the tall chain fence. It was very quiet.

“Go on,” said Angela as though it was all my idea. “Knock.”

I put one foot on the metal step and knocked quietly.

There was nothing for a while, then footsteps. Miranda stood behind the screen. She was in a man's AC/DC T-shirt. It came to her knees. Her long brown hair was unbrushed. She held her stomach.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

She looked behind her and opened the door slowly. She came down the steps and stood on the gravel in bare feet. She had bruises on her legs. Her skin was no longer like fine porcelain. She shivered even though it wasn't cold.

“We just wanted to ask you something,” said Angela.

“About what?”

“About Beth.”

“I already told the police when it happened, I don't know anything. I never saw her after the party.”

She took the hand from her pregnant belly and wiped her eyes.

I couldn't believe she had tears in her eyes.

I couldn't believe her bottom lip quivered.

Real tears, two of them, ran down her cheeks.

“Do you know anything about this?” I said.

I took out
The Book of Clues
from the back of my shorts. I showed her the address.

“Normandy Street,” she said aloud.

I saw a shadow, something, pass over her face.

“I don't,” she said. “You kids have got to stop sticking your nose in where it doesn't fit.”

“So you're saying you don't know anything,” I said.

“Who is it, babe?” came a voice from inside.

“No one,” said Miranda.

“What are you two little shits doing here?” said Kevin when he came to the door.

He opened his mouth into his Cheshire cat grin.

“Nothing,” I said.

I closed up the book.

“Come back to bed,” said Kevin.

“Bye,” said Miranda.

“See you,” I said.

Angela and I walked down the caravan park main street. I felt a song trying to come through. I shook my head.

“She's such a liar,” I said.

That day Angela wrote in
The Book of Clues:

But we didn't go to the address. When we walked home through the park I could tell she was secretly
thinking it was too late. I wasn't going to sing in the Talent Quest.

If I am to be honest it is the darkest thing I know. It happened on a night when they sat along the gutter outside of the Oasis. A man came out and asked them what their poison was. He was still dressed in his dark blue work gear. He had grime on his hands but he had cleaned up his face.

“Lambrusco,” Beth said.

“Shit, you're not cheap.”

“I've got money,” she said. She was still in her work shirt and jeans.

“We'll buy it.”

He came back with two friends and a cardboard box full of bottles.

“We'll go to the lake,” he said. “Marty's driving.”

“I'm not going to the lake,” said Michelle Wright. “Not with people I don't know.”

“Don't be a reject,” said Miranda.

“I'm going,” said Beth.

“I'm going,” said Miranda.

“Only because you're sluts,” said Rochelle Peters.

“And you're the Virgin Mary,” said Miranda.

The man was John; his two mates, Peter and Martin. Marty, who drove the car, was quiet, but Peter, who sat in the back between Miranda and Beth, was loud. He laughed at his own jokes. He
threw his head back. He was tall; his head nearly touched the roof of the car. He had long bangs that fell across one eye.

John rested his arm along the front seat and looked back at Miranda. Then he looked at Peter, and Beth saw the exchange with their eyes. Who belonged to who. She watched Miranda giving John the eye already, looking down at her fingers in her lap and then slyly through her long black eyelashes at him again.

They headed onto the highway and out of town. Peter opened up a bottle and handed it to Beth. She turned her head and looked at the mine lights receding into the distance.

“You're a quiet little thing, aren't you?” he said.

Beth took a swig out of the bottle and looked at him but didn't say anything. John passed a joint back.

“That should loosen you up a little bit,” said Peter, and he put his hand on her knee.

Miranda wound her window right down. She undid her seat belt and climbed up and sat with the top part of her body out of the window. She let out a scream into the night.

“Hey,” said Marty, “get back inside. Shit.”

“She's a crazy woman,” said Peter, and let out a stream of laughter.

“Just get her in,” said Marty.

Miranda sat back inside the car.

“Try it,” she said.

“Don't you dare,” said Marty as Beth undid her seat belt.

He was slowing down the car as she sat up on the window but the wind still whipped the hair backward across her face. She held on to the inside of the car with two hands but then let go of one and used it to push the hair back from her face. It was like flying. She felt like letting go altogether. Marty slowed right down and then stopped the car. He got out and slammed his door.

“Get back in the car, all right,” he shouted.

She got back in the car. He started the engine.

“Jeez, Marty,” said Peter, “what's up your fucking arse tonight?”

“Shut your face, dickhead,” said Marty, and he squealed his tires as he drove up the shoulder onto the highway.

At the lake it was pitch-black apart from the stars. It was difficult to see where the grass ended and the water began. Peter took Beth by the hand and led her down to one of the picnic tables. When they had finished the first bottle he opened the next.

In the darkness she could hear the water touching the shore. The lake breathed in and out against the grass and weed. The rhythm of it rocked her. She tilted her head back to look at the stars. There was
no moon. Somewhere, distant, she heard Miranda laughing.

“You want a bit of this?” said Peter, and he took her hand and put it on his crotch and rubbed it up and down. She drank from the bottle for a while with her free hand.

“Are you a bit up yourself or something?” he asked.

On the ground he pulled her shirt up over her head. Her skin shone like alabaster. He made a groaning noise and then snorted as the breath caught in his throat. His long bangs hung over one side of his face. The one visible eye had a giant pupil. A single round dark hole. He tugged her jeans down over her hips. He knelt beside her face.

“Suck on it,” he said.

“I don't want to,” she said.

She heard the lake breathe in.

“Fucking suck on it, you little slut,” he said, and he picked up her head between his hands.

He let her sit up and she spat the semen out onto the grass. She thought she was going to vomit but she didn't. Peter stood up and tilted his head back and laughed. He took a mouthful of the wine and spat it at her and laughed again.